Breaking News: Unity Has Disappointed Us

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[@tealishpotato]

As if John Riccitello being former CEO of EA wasn't bad enough, he once said that game developers who didn't put microtransactions in their games were "f***ing idiots". He's also the guy who pitched the "let's charge $1 per reload in multiplayer shooters" idea. Can't believe he found a way to beat both of those downright evil things.

[@LeOwwAndRose]

$1 per reload is fucking insane

[@TheKrid44]

@@LeOwwAndRose either that was a joke or that person is a fucking idiot and should be blacklisted to the day they die in the industry

[@TheRagingAura]

Whats worse is the full context is, he said "once gamers are an hour or more into a session, we could realistically charge $1 per reload without any backlash". He honestly believed people were that gullible and that they could make serious money doing it.

[@TheKrid44]

so glad his idea never was allowed morons like that should be kept in isolation to prevent them from harming those around them with their stupid shit

[@thechugg4372]

@@TheRagingAura And for now people have proven him right, just a matter of time now

[@thelaughingrouge]

Fun fact: By selling a bunch of their stock before making the announcement they committed an actual crime. So there's a real good change the board could go to jail for insider trading!

[@gabrielpineirogarcia2078]

Its hard to prove, They can say It was unrelated and that makes It harder to prove

[@thelaughingrouge]

​@@gabrielpineirogarcia2078all they gotta do is lean on members of the board and I guarentee someone will roll over and testify in exchange for immunity. Happens all the time.

[@AdmiralStoicRum]

Believe me announcements and talks for this sort of thing Go on for months up to a year before they even make any kind of announcement. It starts out as a good idea fairy. And then it starts to gain traction. And then the CEO goes you know I really think this is a bad idea but I want to go for a money grab so we're going to push it but also hey jimothy could you please sell 5,000 shares of mine in from the company Yes Yes I'm selling 5,000 shares I'll talk to you in about 6 weeks and we'll sell another $5,000

[@dr.blockcraft6633]

​@@AdmiralStoicRumPretty sure That he Set those Stocks to Be sold A year Ago, like, Most corps Do that. But you Are right, These plans Were months In the Making, up To like, 2-3 years. It just Takes a Little extra Planning.

[@Falcodrin]

​@@gabrielpineirogarcia2078especially because it's spread over the whole year.

[@KingNanoA]

Side note, they later came out and said that for game pass and similar services, they’d charge the distributer. They were gonna charge Microsoft and Sony for Game Pass/Playstation Plus downloads. I’d have loved to see the reaction/lawsuit.

[@thelaughingrouge]

I'm sure the billion dollar corporations would be fine with them changing already signed contracts and totally wouldn't sue them into oblivion.

[@AnotherGuyFromEarth]

@@thelaughingrouge Oh, how much would I pay for them to try that on Nintendo.

[@soupcangaming662]

This court must pay me for them to talk about MY engine!

[@coffeegirl18]

Yeah it'd be a big nope or a small initial sum.

[@gummygal008]

riccitello's gonna be dead

[@KaeGraves]

They broke my heart and it made me stop working on my game entirely. I'm currently switching engines but they've broken my trust and any faith in them that I could have had. I am never going to trust them again after this, and honestly it was such a scummy thing to do to their consumers and smaller studios. The amount of effort it will take to learn another engine from the ground up is daunting and they know that so they assume people will just stay with Unity, little do they know I am powered by spite.

[@LyraPyxisVT]

Good for you, you can do it, I hope it turns out amazing

[@Lakefish_HAXX]

i was (lightly) working on making my own game as well, and had very high hopes for Unity being the ideal for it. Even with their backpedaling, I have swapped off of their platform entirely - apparently Godot is being seen as a commonly-agreed-upon sidestep, if it helps to know a nice alternative.

[@alkimia1791]

I really hope it works out 😢 what is your game called or what is it about? I would love to check it out in the future or something. I know its dumb, but hearing about these changes I suddenly just felt so bad about small game developers and just how many might have to just give up on their projects they've worked on. I want to support them

[@KaeGraves]

It was a silent hill style game with puzzles and maybe amnesia inspired elements with concepts of abstract horror and surrealism. I don't have a proper name for it yet, and I am currently writing out the plot so I may end up starting a new project and deciding to work on a different style of game entirely but in the meanwhile, I am working on other projects all the time and haven't really gotten a full game finished but I'll get there one day, just definitely not with Unity. @@alkimia1791

[@Lakefish_HAXX]

I've been tossing a lot of small ideas around with little progress, but the main idea I am trying to keep focused on is a procedural-generated world with a few static towns and cities; the "universe" of the game will have collapsed, apart from the "islands of stability" with small camps to explore. I don't have a working title of any kind yet, so it would definitely be a long ways out.

[@technewb8241]

Unity's FORMER!!! CEO also came out and said "mobile developers that don't prioritize microtransactions are fucking morons". Are we surprised that a guy like that is criminally greedy?

[@aarroncross3801]

He also said people should have to pay for more bullets in Battlefield 3

[@ashrowan2143]

This is the same guy who was in charge of EA during some of their most money hungry years(and that's fucking saying something considering it's EA) so that tracks

[@TrashBin2126]

Its genuinely disappointing that despite the fact this absolute Insect doesn’t work in EA anymore, He’s still plaguing video games

[@technewb8241]

@@TrashBin2126 he won't be for long. He's 100% under investigation for insider trading after this latest stunt. You don't get to take charge of a company, get paid in stock options, then dump your shares right before making an announcement that tanks your market value

[@littleolelonk4759]

He was fired from his previous spot for being to greedy

[@ResidentEvilFan1123]

Re-Logic, the creators behind Terraria, were so pissed about this move by Unity, they made an announcement stating that they will be donating $100,000 each to Godot, FNA, and Monogame on top of a $1,000/month sponsorship to them in order to ensure these platforms stay free and accessible to aspiring developers

[@grape_protogen]

GOOD ON RELOGIC, WOOO! 🥳

[@TrueXiarno]

@@grape_protogen Re-logic have always been the fricking goat!

[@pmt_red4702]

You know it’s bad when the distractible podcast talks about the drama

[@timeslice]

Nothing will be a good enough distraction from the terror of greed.

[@mohammedabb985]

You know its bad when talks about it

[@Echo81Rumple83]

Personally, this would prolly make me listen to it. Making jokes about current events is the only thing that has made me cope during these serious times.

[@MaRaMa-ARTZ]

Unity didn't shoot themselves on the foot, they shot themselves on the head. Unity died, that's their twitching corpse refusing to let the soul go but it's already dead.

[@RAMChYLD]

Tell that to some of the editors at TVTropes who put so much faith into unity that they deleted my edit, saying that it's too early to tell.

[@MerkeligStrormride]

@ArenVrem Yeah, it's still too early to tell what will happen, and TVTropes is probably waiting for the controversy to conclude.

[@ashrowan2143]

Honestly even if they replace the CEO they have destroyed all trust and any respect they've built up over the companies time. The only way I can see them recovering is firing that guys ass making a hard about face on this decision and they honestly might have to rebrand entirely, the name Unity has been stained by this announcement and I really don't know if it can ever fully recover from this

[@KraylebStudios]

​@@RAMChYLDTVTropes?

[@MerkeligStrormride]

@@KraylebStudios It's a wiki for common tropes in creative works.

[@gabrielpineirogarcia2078]

Friendly Reminder that Unity is not the problem, its CEO is. People working on Unity got the news first and were also against those changes, but management told them theyd answer their questions. Then They made the announcement public behind their backs. Remember also that before this Shit went down the CEO pre-emptively dumped a couple millions from actions on Unity. He knew the effect It was going to have on the company and sank It to make a profit.

[@RAMChYLD]

This is the same CEO who ran EA. His crimes includes - loot boxes in EA Sports titles - wanted to make reloading weapons in Battlefield a one use DLC (meaning: you need to pay each time you want to reload). - SimCity 2013's always online requirement - Christmas rushing The Sims 4 and forcing them to cut content just to make it (also, babies are mere objects). - the latter 2 caused the death of sub-studio Maxis. This is the kind of evil we're dealing with.

[@theworldoflivvy3150]

@@RAMChYLD Wait, Maxis is dead??? Who the hell is the ghost who keeps the Spore servers up then? I thought it was a Maxis employee that was in time out, or haunting one of the towers. What, is the whole studio haunted???

[@RAMChYLD]

@@theworldoflivvy3150 most likely "The Sims Studios", previously a child company of Maxis that has been restructured to be directly under EA after Maxis was taken out to the back and shot.

[@forgotten893]

Don't forget that he plans to buy shares again once the shares stop dropping!

[@Echo81Rumple83]

Aww, don't be so harsh on them. Corporations are people, too, y'know, and are just as susceptible to making bad decisions and having bad character like any other "people" based on their definition. Footnote: that was sarcasm, BTW.

[@mutantmaster1]

This isn't just killing the golden goose, this is killing it, shitting on it's corpse, then summoning demons to drag the mess down to hell, and wondering why bystanders are scared and upset by your actions

[@kdevelopergw]

unity has been doing scummy stuff for over a year now, a year ago there was drama about them merging with ironSource (a company that had history with malware), and about the CEO of Unity calling all game devs who do not prioritize monetization in their games "fucking idiots" (word to word)

[@EleanorofAquitaine42]

I hope I never know what it’s like to be driven only by greed. Must be a sad, sad existence. Those types of CEOs always seem like empty shells in designer suits.

[@RebbyEviolite]

That's not even the full story. There was gonna be an under the table kinda deal that as long as you use IS' ad system or something instead of other partners they can subsidize the runtime payment. Probably not fully accurate, please do your research before trusting me

[@RAMChYLD]

⁠this is the same CEO that run EA during EA's worst times. Of course he would do this. He's such a sad, sad man. He should be in jail for insider trading but no.

[@kdevelopergw]

@@RebbyEviolite iirc the actual thing was that people who used ironSource's built-into unity ad system got reduced rates for the runtime fee

[@kdevelopergw]

@@RAMChYLD He was the one who brought up the idea of charging money for RELOADING. His reasoning was "when you're in the middle of a battle you don't care that much so of course you're gonna pay" which is stupid. He was fired from EA for being greedy, and considering how greedy EA normally is, that should say a ton

[@lanceelamparo1757]

Poor Lixian, a game developer. Hopefully, he can still make games and master Unreal Engine if Unity is literally falling apart.

[@LaurenT3G]

Fortunately, he said that he's not going back to Unity regardless. I'm sure that even with a learning curve for Unreal Engine, he'll make fantastic games :>

[@ashrowan2143]

​@@LaurenT3Gyeah a lot of developers are likely never going back to Unity even if they stop this change. Unity has lost all of the trust and respect they've built up over the years with this one move because the people using it and even people just playing the games have just been viscerally reminded that this is a big company that does not care about us and would bleed us dry if it meant getting an extra cent out of us and they can't be trusted not to do so and not to alter their contracts

[@RAMChYLD]

Mark mastered Unreal Engine in two hours (done it in a Corridor Crew episode where he got pitted against Sean aka Jack). And Mark has zero programming experience. This made possible by Unreal's Blueprints system and the fact that you can buy someone else's code directly from the Unreal Marketplace (yeah, there are people who readily sell pre-made code for UE). I'm sure Lixian can master it faster and do more with it.

[@potawatadingdong]

There are other engines besides Unity and Unreal.

[@darthvaderdylan]

@@potawatadingdong the problem being that it takes time to learn and master other engines, which is a huge drawback for releasing games of a standard quality.

[@DiamondG489]

The guy behind the decision definitely knew that this would backfire hard and sold his shares before then to still get his money out before the stocks dropped, he legit ruined the company's trust and shareholds in order to make him the only one getting dough while everyone else gets screwed over in the end of the crossfire. Idc how many people used Unity, it's now as bad as EA and Activision/Blizzard in my eyes and the game devs deserve better after all of that

[@baddawgdavis]

Well the guy behind the idea was the CEO of EA. So.. ya know.

[@dasboots3272]

Standard deal in the world right now. Basically good company does good things and grows. Gets bought or grows beyond management ability of starting people. Greedy people with connections to other greedy people do shady stuff and make lots of money from the hardworking people. I hope they don't wonder why quality of life isn't improving and we Basically stopped making real advancements. Too many fearful leaders focused only on maintaining the status quo and protecting their fragile egos

[@DiamondG489]

@@baddawgdavis When I heard about it after the decision, I wasn't too surprised since that's exactly what EA does

[@WarpPotato]

​@@dasboots3272capitalism in a nutshell. Get the most profit at any cost

[@thelaughingrouge]

It's insider trading and he could legit see jail time over this.

[@BazukinBelyugovich]

The CEO sells lots of shares of his own company, then puts in policy that is obviously going to backfire. Deliberately acting against his own company for personal financial gain. It just feels illegal, don't know if it is though...

[@ObsessedwithZelda2]

The only term I hear on such topics is ‘Insider Trading’, but I never looked into the exacts of that. As far as I know, it absolutely is illegal, but I definitely don’t have a deep understanding on it

[@jameswest6232]

@@ObsessedwithZelda2 They actually talked about this later in the segment. Not terribly well versed in this sort of thing myself, so I'm mostly quoting Bob, but this IS insider Trading and is SUPER, go-to-jail-do-not-pass-go illegal. Sadly, there is a chance the CEO might get off scott free as he was trading earlier in the year instead of only selling stock right before the policy was announced. Fortunately, some other board members didn't establish said pattern, are much more likely to be found guilty, and could point the finger at their boss in exchange for a plea bargain.

[@ObsessedwithZelda2]

@@jameswest6232 Fascinating. Thanks for the extra info!

[@Warmishcookies]

@@jameswest6232 sounds about right

[@l33tninja1]

​@@ObsessedwithZelda2is most used by polticians as a way to abuse their position amoung many other ways.

[@michaeljensen2208]

Not only have those game companies made statements, the developers of Terraria made a huge announcement that they were donating $10,000 to Godot and FNA. It was also promised they would be maintaining a monthly donation of $1,000 to give the new engines a chance to advance and rival Unity.

[@Oshroth]

It was $100K initial donations to Godot, FNA and Monogame plus ongoing monthly donations of $1K

[@concept5631]

​@@Oshroth Absolute chads

[@jadecoolness101]

@@Oshroth I would hope some of that money also, in SOME way, goes into making public content to help educate ex unity users on how to use the engines. I'm not saying "this money isn't enough" or anything, it's amazing. But that this money will be wasted if no one knows how to use the engine and there's no good resources to learn. To be more specific, I hope these companies getting the money use some of it on guides. Let unity burn to the ground, but I want the transition to be as smooth as possible for devs.

[@patrykjaskowski4226]

Johnny Richettello is an outright inspiration for one of the antagonist of No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Back/ one of the primary antagonist of No More Heroes 3, who shares his surname, exclusively due to Sudan 51's (guy who directed the original MNH as well as a few other notable niche cult classics) horrible experience of trying to work with this man, with his creative vision constantly being shafted for things that Mr. EA thought would appeal to the broadest market which I think should enough info to highlight how bad he is. Basically he's one of the biggest reasons for why EA is what it is today, and it has been miserable seeing his exploits.

[@Echo81Rumple83]

FR? Me gotta check that out alongside with Succession, but I'll need some SERIOUS pallet cleanser for detoxification after watching those. ...Got any feel-good cartoon series you can recommend maybe?

[@vijayanand6650]

I work in the finance industry with several licenses. The selling shares thing pisses me off it’s straight up insider trading which is very illegal but because it’s so hard to prove without a whistleblower who has hard documentation, rich people and politicians get away with it all the time by saying it was unrelated.

[@bleh329]

I mean... is there a way to get an investigation started so financial professionals can audit their accounts?

[@Unmustache1]

@@bleh329Having a giant company file a lawsuit against you Like maybe Nintendo or Microsoft?

[@Unmustache1]

@@bleh329 It’s possible, but I mean… How often does it usually happen?

[@bleh329]

@@Unmustache1 Not nearly as often as it should, I imagine 😑

[@personmcname6848]

@@bleh329 been reading some comments, and apparently some pokemon games were made using unity, so if unity goes and changes their terms for their already established deals, well...we *all* know how spooky japanese lawyers can be.

[@MagrokAlpha]

And of course, it's not an exaggeration that the prominent lack of royalty fees *is the reason Unity got to where it is.* They would not be anywhere near as big a name in game development if they hadn't advertised the engine as royalty-free from the start. Then you get enough buy-in from people who've trusted you and sunk years of development onto it and you pull the rug out of them. Not even to mention the in-game advertisement bundling they then tried.

[@ryuudrazyl5330]

It all just boils down to greed. As always. You can't expect better out of someone who is incapable of creating anything worthwhile on their own. Wouldn't it be amazing if scum bags were actually held accountable for their actions?

[@jau5652]

Really sucks when companies work so hard towards ruining a good thing

[@zeneggs101]

I’m so used to them doing hypotheticals that for the first minute or two I genuinely didn’t think this was real and just thought “wow that’s such a ridiculous idea”

[@momococotrv396]

Unity making this change made me and my friends literally shook in awe on the balls of these guys, we had just come out off College in Games design (Learning C# which is the coding language used in Unity) so this information if this whole thing burns down could be catastrophic for our future and would've been a massive waste of our time. We have already begun learning C++ to recover, I really hope this wont affect my portfolio as Unreal was not the taught Program however it will be self taught aka YT video's. My condolences for the other games dev's that have been making this change.

[@dudeistpriest787]

C++ isn't that hard to learn, I had zero background in programming and I picked up a working knowledge of it in about a month so you should be fine. Bro Code does some damn fine tutorials on multiple languages.

[@TrashEater2729]

We need a Gamers French Revolution right now

[@justashitposter9372]

It took 3 minutes for me to realize this was distractible and I just got whiplash when Markiplier showed up

[@joshuagoforth1658]

This hurts me because I loved unity they were behind so many games that I absolutely adore including cult of the lamb so I am truly saddened to hear this but yes this is incredibly wrong of them

[@corvespid4925]

Nothing wrong with loving the engine, which is also why it's so painful for many of the developers: They liked it, and now question its future because the people owning the code have shown they are untrustworthy.

[@Mike-rn5yr]

Don't forget Hollow Knight

[@PartyBoxGamer]

Thanks for posting this clip guys! It made the Unity news more digestible.

[@elementkingaming1947]

as someone whos an inspiring game developer and spent most of his free time learning all he could with coding on unity, it seriously hurt my soul when i first heard this. I entirely hope they backtrack and decide to not do this at all. I seriously do not want to waste the time i spent and dont want to lose what progress ive already made just to pack up and move on like some hobo

[@jarbarsi]

As somebody learning game dev still, even though they reverted much of what made the new pricing structure problematic and made it entirely optional, unity has still been removed from my toolbox, it was the first engine I properly learned how to use, but I'm never going to use it again now that they've completely betrayed the trust of their entire community, if they'll do it once, they will do it again, and I'm not going to get stuck in the middle of that. Long live open source game engines! :D

[@JanbluTheDerg]

It can't be understated how big of a game engine Unity was. Like, over 50% of the market share for game engines. Unreal doesn't come close! Heck, from my understanding of Google Trends data, it seems that Godot (an open-source engine) got a bigger boost from this than Unreal did (probably because Godot is not gonna ever be able to pull this bs, it's lightweight, newer, can do 2D and 3D, can do C# which is what Unity users are used to, and has a closer vibe to Unity)

[@DragonSnips]

I'm glad that I decided to go with Unreal Engire for a game that I've been working on. I didn't want to go with Unity at first and thought about trying it out in the future. Now I won't be trying it out at all with this bullshit. I feel bad for the game developer who uses Unity, especially Lixian who had used Unity in the past.

[@derflerp538]

For once, my struggle to start making games paid off. I dropped Unity long before these changes, and my friends were already using Godot. I will be okay, but not everyone will. I feel for those who have been nearly if not completely shafted by this blatant breach of not only trust but basic human decency. Businessmen do not make games, they make products, and that is why companies like Unity can't go on forever.

[@danielkilworth1076]

I think the creators of Terraria put a middle finger to unity by announcing they would be donating a crap ton to another studio monthly or something like that. I don't remember the exact details though

[@froxManDude]

i think it was something like 5k a month to godot. i don't know how much total but thats what i heard.

[@danielkilworth1076]

@@froxManDude thanks for clarifying, saves me looking for the tweet

[@Cheri_Blast]

I feel they've completely ruined trust with consumers and their reputation - whether temporarily or permanently, I'm not sure, but certainly enough to give them a huge slap in the face And if a game isn't near completion/already released, I do not blame anyone for shifting over to a new engine following this announcement, even if it means more time and money will be spent just relearning stuff I was considering learning game development and making a mobile game, one day (one that'd actually be a game suited for mobile, rather than console-quality stuff that requires a microscope to navigate via the tiny screens) Was gonna go for Unity, now will search for suitable alternatives - I hear godot is great, for example

[@silversarcasmic5111]

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it turned out he was still loyal to EA and wanted to sink Unity to get rid of competition

[@drthmik]

Many EA games are made in Unity

[@genericyoutubecommenter589]

my brother in christ the only thing this man is loyal to is his bank account

[@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg]

No it's the almighty dollar not his bank account. Just chasing after that big green paper...Greed will always be ones downfall@@genericyoutubecommenter589

[@commandercritic9036]

You know what we need to complete that thumbnail… Jim Carrey’s Dr Robotnik reaching for the left hand button, and the Unity logo plastered on his face.

[@joshmariotti2844]

What shocks me is that another company, Wizards of the coast who owns dungeons and dragons, tried to do almost exactly this earlier this year in febuary to the exact same result. Broken trust, outraged fans and developers, and everyone getting ready to abandon ship. The biggest thing is that a choice like this establishes the president that they can change the rules whenever they want. This is by every regard the biggest red flag you could ever have.

[@dudeistpriest787]

To be fair, the idea that they can change the rules at any time is baked into nearly every ToS agreement you've ever (not) read. They include that kind of language intentionally because they know that: 1) Most customers are not going to read the ToS because it's written in borderline-incomprehensible legalese. 2) Even the ones who do read it and don't like it will probably accept anyway because they have few or no viable alternatives. What we're seeing here is the end result of short-sighted stupidity chasing an unattainable goal. Most corporations now operate on the infinite growth model, meaning that no matter what they must make more money every quarter than they did in the last quarter; this is not actually possible, or even sustainable, over the long term but they're incentivized to do it anyway because of their investors. That's why so many CEOs of major corporations come across as ignorant or outright incompetent; they ARE ignorant or outright incompetent. These boards of directors want yes men that will do any stupid thing as long as it brings in more dollars _right now,_ long-term profitability and sustainability be damned. The only silver lining to this is that it _isn't_ sustainable, so you're likely going to see more and more of these corporations wither and fall apart over the next 10-15 years or so.

[@joshmariotti2844]

@@dudeistpriest787 Everything you say is totally correct, but its besides the point I was trying to make. When your a game developer (video games or table top) and your using the foundation of another company through an agreement, you stop being a customer and start being a partner. Most don't see it this way (the providing company especially in these cases) but you are both providing a service to others in which the two parties will profit off of. Those with experience (and a legal team) will seek contracts that cannot be changed without the approval of both parties, because putting yourself at the mercy of another bigger company who can change the rules is business suicide. "I've changed the deal, pray I don't change it further." Unity and Wotc, be it from the start or only realizing the option after the fact, put their developer into a trap no reasonable person saw coming, and sprung it with dollars in their sight. I definitely didn't see it coming, and I think most people reading this didn't either. I hoped after Wotc's ogl controversy that this kind of thing would be avoided. But with unity I'm clearly incorrect.

[@Zack_Wester]

@@dudeistpriest787 yes and no as most nations including the US have protection from this pr more correct you can make edits but it can't be a complete redesign that claw is there for stuff like this piece was poorly worded a spirit vs written kind of deal. what unity tried to do would not fly in EU court.

[@dudeistpriest787]

@@Zack_Wester I get what you're saying, but we're talking about a billion-dollar corporation making a massive change to a long-standing legal agreement. There's no doubt in my mind that their lawyers were involved in this, and the fact that they went ahead with it tells me that their legal team either didn't see a problem, or they were confident they could win a court case. If the public backlash hadn't been strong enough to make them backpedal, the courts and the law probably wouldn't have given as much protection as you think.

[@jinxgirl5]

Can't see them recovering from this. Even if they back pedaled, fired the CEO and anyone else backing the idea, and do a big show of all the good new people they have and how much they support game makers, trust is broken. Enough people are gonna jump ship that there's no going back even if they change.

[@dudeistpriest787]

I hope so, it'd be nice to see a corporation actually have to suffer the consequences of their own stupidity for once.

[@RookwingsKirk]

I'm so pleased that you covered this - thank you!

[@W0lfbaneShikaisc00l]

Lots of new developers are going to be learning Unreal this year... and just when I thought I too would try my hand at developing games in this - what a waste of time it must be for most people.

[@elementkingaming1947]

Some recent updates on this drama: They are still keeping this change, but they've changed it in many ways to try to have their cake and eat it too. Some of these changes include: Unity personal users being exempt from having to pay this fee. Changing payment terms from two choices of either 2.5% revenue share, or a calculated amount based of how many downloads the game has, with the leaser cost of the two being picked. Games making less than 1mil in a year are exempt from paying this fee. Unity projects made with 2024 are only applied to this fee, so any game running any previous version is also exempt. They are also increasing the unity personal eligibility cap from 100k to 200k, allowing those with unity personal to make more money on their own before having to switch to the 1k yearly payment for unity pro. Overall I think this is reasonable and believe it should've been thought of first, and this certainly makes it better but doesn't fix it. It's good that they are listening though

[@rexnatori]

While it definitely is better it doesn't in any way fix it. Unity was making more than enough money on its own before these changes. Trust toward the company is already broken for majority of the people and there's still chance bigger game companies will still do something about this. It just makes it less scummy and awful for indie devs at least, but it doesn't change that it was an absolute dick move to begin with. (Edit: this is Richettello we're talking about, even if this ends up sliding under the rug after more changes it's still possible he may come up with something else that's just as bad or even worse. It's about what we should expect from the previous EA CEO.)

[@kaja3932]

I've seen this cycle before. Richettello isn't trying to listen to Unity's community, he's trying to shut them up until they're too exhausted to fight back.

[@bleh329]

I wonder what people who teach/make courses for Unity are going to do...

[@GoldenSkull-wn2ff]

Funny thing is ive been wanting to learn C# and how to use Unity for a while now but I've been my lazy self and procrastinating for a while now. Then this happens and for once in my life im happy i was lazy and chose to procrastinate instead of learning C#.

[@WarpPotato]

Get into custom engine building. That's even harder but more consistent. There's some games with their own engines, so it's viable

[@GoldenSkull-wn2ff]

@@WarpPotato i want to learn how to do that too, but I dont think I'm skilled enough to do something like that

[@AdmiralStoicRum]

This is why you had activation registration keys, they were good for once. At least for billing purposes. If you need to reinstall on your computer you'd already registered that code and it wasn't going to get billed again

[@gameplayerabe4248]

To quote Garry Newman "Unity can get F*****".

[@orikalin]

Yea, solo indie developer here working on Project Kobold's Tale, a 2d pixel art metroidvania, in Unity... I haven't opened the project since all this drama began. The pricing changes were ludicrious beyond belief, and like you said, every clarification made it worse, but the real and lasting issue is the violation of trust as a business partner. They just up and decided to retroactively change their terms of service and fees, and apply it to all games already made and in development, no opt out options, no choice, no warning. The people who did get word of this ahead of time, i.e. the unity employees and developers, we're very vocal against these changes, but upper management pushed them through without warning anyways. Even if they had to backpedal on everything... that violation of trust would, and does remain. Now developers can't use unity with peace of mind... we have to worry... oh are they just going to attempt this again years down the line? or slowly move towards the per-install model, as they have stated they want to do.... It's just not a safe or smart decision to use Unity now, and that is soul crushing for someone who has spent the last 3 years pouring time and dedication into learning the platform and writing my own level building and prototyping tools with plans to use them in future projects. Motivation is just at an all time low.

[@railfan_3371]

I can't say it enough: OPEN SOURCE, OPEN SOURCE, OPEN SOURCE! It's kind of hard for someone to screw you over when they have literally no control over you or your software.

[@angryfromun2282]

I was literally about to start learning unity, and this turned me away.

[@robloxcool88]

Most people seem to be switching to either Unreal or Godot Engine. I'd suggest you do the same.

[@ElekiSerket]

Ayo? Markiploer lookin like Keanu Reeves now, that's pretty cool

[@gcullen576]

You don’t get it: the current Unity lead is so corrupt and greedy EA FIRED HIM. EA said his methods were to greedy, like he was gonna charge for MAGAZINES IN BATTLEFIELD

[@Danganraptor]

Paraphrasing: "An hour into a session, gamers aren't going to care if you charge a dollar a reload." "Mobile devs who don't prioritize monetization and micro-transactions are f**king morons!"

[@CynicallySarcasticReserves]

John should be under trial for crimes against common good of humanity... or something like that. Digital.. war crimes? Yeah, let's go with that.

[@Fuchsiafaefantasy]

Ok but what hes doing COULD be considered a crime. Like i know you're joking but i think this is literally a crime

[@thebfbs8746]

What he’s doing seems to ACTUALLY be a legit crime called “insider trading”. Other comments discuss it more and I barely know what it is. People say that politicians do it but it’s hard to convince a court that the person is actually guilty because they could’ve just felt like selling stock at that time or they sold stock far earlier so it’s hard to relate that spent money to present events.

[@OddNess9339]

Little update from the future everybody. John Richitello has stepped down as acting CEO of Unity and they have backtracked on their policy. Existing games using unity will not be subjected to this new policy and only new games will. Developers using Unity to make new games will have a choice to either unity getting 2.5 percent of revenue the game makes OR the $0.20 per install policy. The threshold a game has to pass has been upped from $200,000 to $1 Million before either policy is enacted. They still have it listed that if a developer chooses the $0.20 per install policy that is also counts REINSTALLATIONS. So if a game is subject to that policy and someone buys, downloads, deletes and reinstalls that game the developer would be charged TWICE still. It is still really shitty that they even have the second original option available but at least SOMETHING came from the outcry from gamers and developers.

[@rubles3143]

Unreal Engine CEO is definitely running around the office high-fiving everyone, fist pumping and shouting "YEAH!" right about now.

[@atwistedb]

He just got forced to step down as CEO 🙏

[@BurBurGerHamCotCotCybercotleta]

Unity (or CEO, EA descendant, if we go into specifics) acts like that one popular kid, who treats his coolness as a trading token and thinks that it could be brought back with ease

[@Zoms101]

"Piracy is inherently predicated on ease of access. As soon as stealing your shit becomes easier than buying it, I'm choosing the former."

[@TokinoSora10thApostle]

I usually avoid company but this time I learn to avoid everything Johnny Risotto have ever touched

[@Derglesnaf]

Imagine you’re 12 years old and you make your first game, and you release it for free and it goes viral. And then the bank forecloses your house.

[@kashino55archive94]

Part of me thinks their hope was to have every major engine switch to this fee service, making it a mandatory thing and earning everyone more money in the long run. In other words, they banked on the greed of others. Truly deplorable

[@chrisgregory3955]

Unity was dead to me over a year ago. This, while bad, honestly didn't surprise me. What else didn't surprise me is that they didn't learn when WOTC tried to retroactively, unilaterally change the OLG into something they could use to take anything they wanted for their own use and make other people pay them for the privelige. The courts stated they couldn't do it retroactively and this lead to WOTC's biggest competitor, Paizo, getting a massive boost in marketshare.

[@sethharpenger607]

Mark turning into kianu MK II

[@thegameis_over1530]

Always remember that investors are the ones that destroy everything they touch developers don't wish to destroy the craft or squander their name but their hands are forced by such investors who believe they know best and after the Destroyer company they have little the consequence of it leaving the place Pockets full.

[@firenzarfrenzy4985]

Given Unreal Engine is the sole major competitor to Unity (basically a duopoly on their market sector), it’s bizarre that they would do something that hurts revenue in the long term since this makes them less competitive

[@atomiclena128]

Companies like Nintendo that use Unity will never accept this new policy. Whatever comes from this, Unity loses.

[@Isiel42]

Remember the Spongebob episode where Mr Krabs starts charging Squidward and Spongebob for working for him?

[@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg]

Remember when Mr. Krabbs asked: "Am I really going to defile this grave for money? OF COURSE I AM!"

[@Metalwabbit]

This seems like it's a common tech bro strategy. You start a practice that isn't sustainable but makes stock value rise. Then, you sell those stocks for as possible while also getting the biggest paycheck for being CEO you can, then leave the burning ship to go to the next company. It isn't about making a good product, keeping customers happy or anything. They destroy companies on purpose after they suck up all the money they can. It actually actively hurts the economy overall doing it too so it eventually won't be sustainable at all which is why most of them keep their money in other countries so they can convert it to the more valuable currency once our economy eventually crashes from them doing this. Then? Start again in that country

[@bapbop2399]

Unity really did fall like a sack of bricks

[@silvermarksman6834]

Unity has destroyed their own business with an incredibly low amount of effort. Gamers will forgive and forget anything after a good 1 minute cinematic. Developers who are building their entire careers around an engine, however, will never forget or forgive a company trying to retroactively screw them over.

[@kieragreywolf546]

Hope Unity enjoys being one of the top two because they won't be long if they go through with this... My two favorite mobile games (same devs) are scrambling because their game is entirely free. They have In Application Purchases (IAPs), but the whole game can be done without a single penny spent and they want to keep their games that way. Now though they're in a panic because if this goes through, they won't be able to afford to pay their staff. They've been entirely open with their game community on Discord about all of this and it's been heart breaking to watch how stressed they are. They've been so excited too about their development progress and teasing upcoming features. Now all of that has to go on the back burner because Unity wants to make a quick buck on these fees before they decimate the dev market. They only care about the short term gain and aren't bothering to consider how bad it will be for them once everyone either gets run out of development due to unreasonable fees or swaps to a new engine and abandons them. Learning a new engine can be real rough, but they've made it the only option for so many smaller devs. They seem to assume people will just 'deal with it' because they have no choice, except they DO have a choice... Go out of business or learn a new engine. Pretty sure I know which one I would pick if I were a dev. Waiting for a rival of Unity to prey upon this terrible decision to lure devs to them.

[@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg]

I have heard of Godot being a good one.

[@daniellawlor6210]

Sue them someone sue them so they can now feel what we felt

[@nicholasthompson1387]

Not like they weren't already making enough money. Their greed and apparent incompetence is going to ruin them.

[@souldragon9130]

Yeah, MegaCrit literally never made a Public Statement before. Unity is no longer Unified, which is ironic.

[@Kolljak]

was learning unity to make VRchat games and other stuff. i have stopped entirely now. might as well learn UE now.

[@jackson01357]

I have basically zero involvement in video games. I can count the number of videogames i've ever played on my hands - and that includes arcade Galaga, Super smash bros on GameCube, and the Tony Hawk skate game on PS2 being top rankers.. and this makes even ME mad.

[@Red_Steampunker]

Unity is one of the go to 2d games, while UE is for 3d both big and small. While tons of games will have their own engine, it’s a lot of commitment and work to make one. Amazing how easy it is to fuck one up.

[@crossgear3042]

You know, with how many use unity, not just small devs but triple A companies i would not be surprised if unity got slammed with class action lawsuits against them.

[@Mernom]

Since they merged with that advertizing company, I don't think PC gaming is their biggest money maker anymore. I heard some theories that the reason for this change is that they want to force mobile games made with Unity to use their own ad system, using the possibility of waiving those fees as a carrot. This would allow them to corner the market of mobile game advertizing.

[@ThatGuy-yc9yc]

Wow, its as if they didnt havr ghost of a thought of how this would inpact their folowing. Ether someone played them to ruin their reputation, or they dont know much about how their company got as big as it did.

[@thacobell4700]

Maybe after this, people will watch where this ceo goes and never use a company headed by him again.

[@TheTurnipKing]

They haven't merely disappointed. They've broken the trust upon which their business model depended.

[@atwistedb]

We are so back Unity bros the CEO stepped down

[@SutasSjet]

Switching engines is no small feat. In fact, if someone were to come out with a tool that would transition from Unity to (insert engine here) engine and do it well? They would make bank.

[@VHS_Serenity]

they got markiplier on this madness :D 2:09

[@selenawolf2466]

When i heard of all of this, all i could think of was my epic quest to download one game, it was broken, uninstalled, etc, etc, until it worked. Ouch.

[@amemnon7859]

Just get rid of that John Riccitello guy and NEVER let him near a CEO position again. He killed EA, he will kill Unity

[@KatOwO2235]

I'm glad I chose the DOOM 1993 engine instead

[@dillonhansen3839]

I like to play slay the spire while listening to you guys and hearing that you guys mentioned it and how upset they are is sad. Hope all of this gets fixed

[@ivoduarte7166]

Same also switching engines here.

[@PantherCat64]

Then there’s games where it’s been around for years and you straight up forgot was made on unity like RimWorld where it has over a million copies sold with that number only growing. That could possibly bankrupt the company, and what are you supposed to do with no money? Delete the game? That won’t work because pirating is still around and you know people will keep installing the game that way, and if unity keep can track of that, you’ve basically put someone into a constant debt with no control.

[@in-craig-ible6160]

This debacle is pissing everyone off, and that's good.

[@shawncaldwell1480]

ea said that John ricatello was too greedy for ea

[@thefallen9805]

Theres quite a few big names that run on unity. If they really wanna put in that decision they'll have to fight microsoft, sony, and nintendo. This decision alone is pissing off EVERYBODY

[@Nirakolov]

What's with businesses copying Elon Musk and torpedoing their own products?

[@CAdams_Art]

Unity really shat the bed on this one - I don't think they'll ever be able to recover, and it's really disappointing to see what was a really great, accessible starter-engine for developers turn into what it has.

[@tearainey1]

I saw a theory that Unity actually did this on purpose to tank their stocks, I'm assuming for some sort of stock buyback by the execs or something? I'd have to find the story again but the gist of the theory was that they wanted to grab more control and monetary value from the company and the cheapest way to do that was to do something to crash the stocks, and this happened to work perfectly. Now they probably would have followed through if the pushback was less, lets face it companies like that are greedy to the core. That's probably why they kept doubling down on what was clearly a bad idea, with growing customer animosity. Honestly it was a real d-bag move and I hope it causes the entire company to collapse and better engine options to pop up in the aftermath. Game devs, especially the little guys, didn't deserve this nonsense.

[@PanRokador]

Mark my words, it will be a grand success for them. Who cares about the customers, name or reputation when you can get money and vanish, something John will surely do

[@halosreaper1]

Isn't what he's doing technically fraud? Also i do not see this working out how the dumbass CEO wants it to. Especially if distractible is talking about it and getting the word out to others. Besides even this new TOS they put out can get them sued and they would more than likely lose more than they would've gained. Unity needs to kick this guy out on to the curb, completely rescind everything he's changed and apologize again afterwards. He has screwed them over HARD.

[@Devilerium]

I love to see when high profile people like Mark actually give a divisive opinion on things that are kind of a big deal in the game world, it really makes a difference. It's so annoying when you see people who have 3 mil+ subs just quiet about things that effect the game industry.

[@jonathanschloemer6846]

Class action lawsuits incoming.

[@celiovicenteribeirofilho9740]

Blizzard, Eletronic Arts and other gaming companies have had these attitudes towards the general public because they believe that we can only accept it silently. They lift us to the heavens with something we learn to love and then break our wings. They are all too big to fail.

[@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg]

Hence why I haven't bought games in a decade

[@theshadmaster]

and as someone who only knows c# ....the long road to making anything just got much much longer..

[@celiovicenteribeirofilho9740]

As someone who played Warcraft for 10 years and had his enthusiasm for the game destroyed by the devs' disdain and rubbish like beta for Azerith and sadolands, I understand the anger, frustration, sadness and helplessness that those who have fallen victim to this attitude feel. right now. This only hurt developers and players.